Backups are important as they are the last hope in case something goes haywire and manual fixing does not work. We can generate backups manually but it is not always practical as it is not possible to always manually backup accounts with fixed intervals. Speaking of database backups, WHM provides an option to backup databases automatically.

You can do that via WHM >> Backup >> Backup Configuration.

Now, if you navigate to this point, you might notice that there are three options to choose from.

Per account only

Entire MySQL Directory

Per account and entire MySQL Directory

What exactly does these mean. If per account backup is complete, what is the need of ‘Entire MySQL Directory’ backup?

And if ‘Entire MySQL Directory’ backup is complete, what is the significance of Entire MySQL Directory backup?

The ‘Per Account’ backup generate MySQL Dumps. MySQL Dumps can be used to restore/move a single database individually.

The ‘Entire MySQL Directory backup backs up the complete directory as a whole so it is not possible to restore individual databases from that. In comparison, the ‘Entire MySQL Directory’ backups are faster to generate and restore the complete backup.

In any case when it is required to restore the complete databases to a previous date, this is easier rather than restoring each individual database.